Grand Tour - what was it all about?
As today with gap years, the wealthy girls and boys of the late 1700 to mid 1840s used to go on their Grand Tour. This normally meant going to the likes of Florence and Greece to see and learn about the classics. Byron been one of the more famous people to write and comment on places.
A by product of all this tourism was that, copies often of great quality were produced and collected of these famous classical ruins such as the Coliseum in Rome, more often made in bronze and Sienna marble and alabaster.
These items in turn were collected and put on display in country and town houses as statements of what the young and rich had been and done and seen, a little like the face book of today.
In turn we now seek out these items as highly collectable and still sought after. Some items such as the Elgin marbles are still debated over who should own them, grand houses such as Chatsworth in Derbyshire had a long gallery where these items of statuary could be put on display, both copies and Roman and Greek originals.
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